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Since school has started to pick up as finals near, I haven’t got a chance to post in awhile. Between scrambling to get everything together for finals, having nightmares about the bar exam (which I don’t even take for another year…I guess while I may procrastinate, my subconscious and the nightmares it produces do not), and filling orders, my internet and social media presence for lakeshore lavaliere has been lacking. I also realized that the lakeshore lavaliere men’s section is a little barren, and since the monogrammed tie clips with the spring have been so popular, I’ve decided to offer another style of tie clip, or rather, a tie bar. I have to give credit where credit is due, however, because the first (the ones with a spring will heretofore be referred to as tie clips, and the ones without springs will be tie bars… maybe that’s what it is supposed to be, but I’ve seen both referred to by both names online and it’s confusing…so…there.) tie bar came to me as a custom order from my friend and [lakeshore lavaliere spokesmodel 😉 ] Erik Kabe. It looked so sharp (yep, I’m 90) on him, that I decided that I should continue to offer the monogrammed tie bar as an option!

Erik’s is in the traditional monogram style (which I love here), and I used Arial font for his first and middle initials (E & A), and the larger Seymour font for the K. There are also other font and style options by request!

To access the listing for the lakeshore lavaliere monogrammed tie barin my online shop, just click the pictures!

OR

Go to etsy.com/shop/lakeshorelavaliereto browse the other items and shop sections

For Questions/Inquiries/Requests, you can:

email me at lakeshorelavaliere@gmail.com

OR

Etsy Convo me by going to etsy.com/shop/lakeshorelavaliere, and click ‘Contact’ in the tool bar on the lefthand side of the screen OR go to a specific listing and click ‘Contact Shop Owner’ at the bottom of the listing where it says ‘Have Questions?”

After making the Que Será, Será hand stamped necklace that I recently posted about, I decided that I’d like to continue in that vein and create another piece with the title of one of my favorite songs, Let It Be. I could- and do- listen to The Beatles alll day long. Let It Be, like Que Será, Será, is a song that offers comfort to its listeners, advising them that everything will work itself out if they relax and let whatever is going to happen play itself out. Paul McCartney, in an interview with Reader’s Digest, once explained where he got the inspiration for Let It Be and its significance,

“So in this dream twelve years [after she passed away], my mother appeared, and there was her face, completely clear, particularly her eyes, and she said to me very gently, very reassuringly: “Let it be.”

It was lovely. I woke up with a great feeling. It was really like she had visited me at this very difficult point in my life and gave me this message: Be gentle, don’t fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will all work out….

I thought it was special, so I played it to the guys and ’round a lot of people, and later it also became the title of the album, because it had so much value to me, and because it just seemed definitive, those three little syllables. Plus, when something happens like that, as if by magic, I think it has a resonance that other people notice too.

So those words are really very special to me, because not only did my mum come to me in a dream and reassure me with them at a very difficult time in my life – and sure enough, things did get better after that – but also, in putting them into a song, and recording it with the Beatles, it became a comforting, healing statement for other people too.”

I think that Let It Be is an incredibly beautiful song, and I thought that incorporating it into this necklace would be a great reminder of this inspirational mantra:

The antique gold doves and green verdite beads accent the song title and lyrics and give the necklace a hippie/bohemian vibe (my favorite style!) Hope you like it!

To view this item the lakeshore lavaliereonline shop, just click the pictures!

OR

Go to etsy.com/shop/lakeshorelavaliereto browse this and other listings.

For Inquiries/Requests/Custom Orders, Contact lakeshorelavaliere@gmail.com or Etsy convo me by going to my online shop and clicking contact seller on the lefthand column of the page.

Monogrammed jewelry is a great way to give a personal gift for any occasion- or for no occasion at all like this lakeshore lavaliere gold tone hand-stamped brass ring:

This hand stamped gold tone brass ring was a gift for my roommate, who is also the lovely hand model you see in the pictures below. After stamping the blank with her initials, I used the oxidation process that I mentioned in my last post to really make sure the letters were a nice and dark contrast to the rest of the blank. Then, I punched two holes to slip the wire through in order to anchor the blank to the wire ring base & added a metal & jewelry adhesive as well to create a firmer hold. I made the ring’s base from gold tone non-tarnish copper 18-gauge wire, which is definitely the wire I prefer to work with because it doesn’t nick every time you touch it with a tool like most other jewelry/craft wires.

I’ve always loved all things monogrammed, and this ring was a fun way to be able to give a gift to the girl who is bravely entering her third year of sharing a residence with me. Next up: a ring for my other roommate.

These rings are available in any size, in silver, and can be personalized with anyone’s initials (or a word or name as long as it is short enough to fit on the blank!)

To access the listing in the lakeshore lavaliereonline store, just click the pictures!

OR

go to etsy.com/shop/lakeshorelavaliere to browse the different shop sections

For Inquiries/Requests/Custom Orders, you can contact me by email at lakeshorelavaliere@gmail.com

OR

etsy convo me to get a custom order going right away. (go to my etsy.com shop, and click the ‘contact seller’ button on the menu on the left-hand side of the screen)

I’m not going to lie- I made this turtle cuff bracelet with green tube beads & jasper round beadsfor myself. I wear a ton of earth tones in all seasons, and when these beads came in, I fell in love with the way the greens of the tube beads accented the brown swirls of the jasper beads. I knew I wanted to make a piece that incorporated both, so I decided to bring them together in this 4 layer cuff bracelet.

I’m kind of obsessed with cuff bracelets right now & I’ll definitely be making more in a variety of different colors- so look out for upcoming posts with pictures of new cuff bracelets and other pieces!

Replicas of this bracelet are available for purchase in the lakeshore lavaliere online shop- to access the listings, just click the pictures!

This bracelet was an experiment with wire designs combined with beads & stones. I’ve seen a ton of really intricate wire designs lately, and I thought that they might look pretty if they had some sort of beads or stones accenting them. The center pendant was really fun to make; I started with the stone, and wound the wire through and around it as if the stone were inside a frame. Making the swirls & curls match in size was pretty difficult though! After creating this bracelet below,

It’s been wayyy too long since I’ve posted or put up anything new, but I had to take a little break to fill a bunch of custom orders anddd to catch up on law school stuff. I also had to order some new materials, and I’m excited to say that the metal stamping tools are coming in this week, as well as a bunch of charms for necklaces/bracelets etc. So, I will have many new pieces to post about in the upcoming weeks. I am still hunting down tube beads in different colors because custom orders for those have been steadily coming in since the post about the triple wrap turquoise tube bead bracelet–so there will be more of those available soon as well! This double wrap green tube bead bracelet with brown suede cord and a button with an antique gold finish is one of my most recent creations that I thought I’d share:

I saw the way the greens swirled around in each bead and had to get them! This bracelet has a fun and earthy vibe- and looks great stacked with other bracelets (especially with an antique gold or even an antique bronze finish).

To access the listing in the lakeshore lavaliereonline store, just click the pictures!

When I went shopping recently, I happened to pass by a rack with a group of necklaces that had letters stamped into them, resulting in a look was sort of like engravings. The store had a bunch of different letters so that people could buy necklaces with their initials stamped on them, and I really liked the idea of a pendant stamped with my initials, name etc. (but I hated the rest of the necklace because it looked like it would break in the shopping bag on the way home). So, I decided to try and learn how to do metal stamping myself, and decided to start with stamping letters like the ones I saw at the store.There are a variety of metal stamps out there that have pictures and tons of other really cool designs on them, but I was set on learning how to do letters (which I now know is much harder than pictures or designs), so that is what I have been working on. The alphabet stamp sets come with each letter raised from the bottom of a steel post,

and you have to line them up perfectly to make sure the letters are straight, space them the exact same distance apart so they don’t get crowded in one area of a word and spread out in another, and also you have to hit them just at the right angle or they will move and come out looking like the letters are tipping over, etc. And, it’s really hard to line the stamps up perfectly straight, considering the bottom of the stamps are circles… (this seems like a ridiculous design defect to me, but who am I to say anything about the process of metal stamp making?) But, after much practice, I think I’ve gotten the hang of it:

The metal blanks were made for jewelry, but I decided to turn this one into a dog tag for the furry little love of my life

Anyways, I will soon be taking orders for metalstamped jewelry with names and initials, and will be putting some pieces up on the lakeshore lavaliere online store within the week!

Don’t forget to follow lakeshore lavaliere here (by clicking follow on the right-hand side of the screen to follow by email and upper left if you have a blog!) and on Twitter and Pinterest for information about new items, tutorials, and of course, pictures!

Yesterday I realized I hadn’t added anything to the lakeshore lavalierefall line recently, so I decided to go hunting for more beads that reflect the colors of fall. I found these amazing dyed turquoise orange stone beads, (which are similar to the ones I used previously in the lakeshore lavaliere Turquoise Drop Triple Chain necklace) and had to have them:

Real turquoise is hard to come by right now, and fairly expensive, so when I saw these beads I really just had to have them. I love the earthy feel they have and the way the orange swirls with the other colors. These beads just remind me of the wide variety of oranges, browns, tans, etc. that the leaves change in the fall- and those are my favorite colors! I will definitely create more pieces with the rest of these beads, but there aren’t many of them and I can’t buy more because they are no longer available, so these pieces will really be one=of-a-kind. I’ll have more necklaces and accessories to post later today, so check back later for more new pieces!

Wire Jewelry is a growing trend, and I’ve begun to see it everywhere. It seems like everybody is accessorizing with wire bracelets, rings, necklaces, and earrings, and I just love the look. Wire jewelry can come in silver, gold, and basically every other color imaginable, and the the possibilities for different designs are endless. Most popular is the wire heart ring (probably because it is the most simple for anyone to make). I made these in the car (don’t worry I was only driving on side roads, not the expressway), and they were really easy to do:

But, I have seen more elaborate designs for sale online and in a few stores, and I thought I’d give it a try. (Also, I was not actually driving while making heart shaped wire rings, I was a passenger in my mother’s car. I can barely change the radio station while driving, much less craft new pieces of jewelry. Okay, no more parenthesis.) My favorite wire jewelry design that I have seen so far is a tiny bird’s nest on a chain, and here is the lakeshore lavaliereversion below:

This lakeshore lavaliere silver wire bird’s nest necklace has real pearls and hangs on a 16 inch silver chain. I love bigger pieces of jewelry, so it’s been awhile since I wore anything as delicate or dainty as this, but I’m obsessed with the look and think it’s time to add some variety into my style choices.

The tiny wire bird’s nest necklace is such a cute way to accessorize any outfit, and the silver and pearls will add a touch of class to any formal or cocktail attire.

This necklace is for sale in the lakeshore lavaliereonline store- just click the pictures to access the listing!